In addition, while his partnership with Mitchell isn't over – they just completed a new series called Ambassadors, in which they play two British diplomats in eastern Europe, alongside Keeley Hawes, Matthew McFadden and Tom Hollander "as a sort of Prince Andrew-type trade envoy" – their collaborations are becoming more sporadic,

Winterbottom: No, that was something we wanted to do with Steve but we cancelled that. We were trying to do it for years and David Hare wrote a screenplay and then we tried to do a different version of it and it was all very complicated. It was set in Uzbakistan, and it was a comedy about torture, and we decided it was too complicated. (laughs)

David Mitchell and Robert Webb reunite as a newly arrived British ambassador and his jaded deputy at the British embassy of Tazbekistan. Their scramble to win business contracts from an under-resourced office in a country not noted for its human rights record should have satirical bite. Keeley Hawes and Tom Hollander also feature.

Set in the fictional Central Asian Republic of Tazbekistan, David Mitchell plays newly arrived British Ambassador Keith Davies and Robert Webb his seasoned second in command, Deputy head of mission, Neil Tilly.

The British ambassador to Tazbekistan is tasked with securing a £2 billion helicopter contract for the UK. Things begin badly when Davis accidentally shoots an Ibex, the national animal, while on a hunting trip with the president - and are further jeopardized when an arrogant young British human rights activist is arrested by the regime on trumped-up charges. This throws Davis into direct conflict with Neil, who believes Britain should be prioritising human rights over winning arms contracts. Neil, though, has ethical troubles of his own when the Tazbek secret police blackmail him into spying on the British for them.

The embassy is hosting a 'Best of British Festival' which offers an opportunity for Davis to impress the Tazbeks and persuade them to go with the British helicopters. However, the best the festival can offer is a medieval folk group from Gloucestershire, a demonstration of how to make a pork pie and a one-man production of Frankenstein. Nobody, least of all Davis, is feeling too confident...Then news reaches them that the human rights activist is facing the death penalty and the ambassador and his team are forced to make a tough decision.

Keith is played by David Mitchell, Neil is played by Robert Webb, Jennifer is played by Keeley Hawes, POD is played by Matthew Macfayden, The President is played by Yigal Naor, Ludmilla is played by Debbie Chazen.

Ambassadors is written by Rupert Walters and James Wood, produced by Chris Carey and directed by Jeremy Webb.

Mitchell and Webb pack their bags for Tazbekistan to star in a diplomatic comedy dramaby Jasper ReesWednesday, 23 October 2013

The funny business of being British, and the even funnier business of being foreign, are at the heart of the latest vehicle for the talents of David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They’ve conquered the sketch format and the grimy sitcom but in Ambassadors they branch out into trickier terrain of comedy drama. The show's task is to snigger at the absurdities of international diplomacy while also showing signs of some sort of beating heart.

Mitchell plays Keith Davies, our new man in Tazbekistan, a tinpot Asiatic amalgam of a couple of post-Soviet republics where the methods of communism have made way for more traditional forms of governance. The current president (Yigal Naor, pictured below) conducts diplomacy in the form of men-only drinking contests, and holds meetings with ambassadors while butchering chunks of a recently slaughtered quadruped. We have no idea what animal this is, but can be certain it’s not the mighty ibex, which is the Tazbek national symbol. In this first episode Davies makes the dangerous mistake of shooting one while enjoying the president’s hospitality, thus potentially fouling a huge contract to sell British helicopter gunships to a president bent on mowing down his own people.

Webb plays Neil Tilly, a world-weary chargé d’affaires who has gone semi-native, while an FCO mandarin (Matthew Macfadyen) barks orders over Skype. Davies’s only ally is his resourceful wife Jennifer (Keeley Hawes), who herself has to deal with an uppity chef serving "plov" with everything. In this British outpost it's the women (with an implausibly high level of youth and beauty) who keep the show on the road. It fell to young Tazbek attaché (Shivani Ghai, pictured below) to curate a mini-festival featuring medieval folk music, chutney and a one-man Frankenstein (Elliot Cowan, very funny).

Nothing will ever satirise Central Asian hellholes as brilliantly as the spoof guide book Molvania. But the ghastly ways of Johnny Foreigner form less than half of the target in the writers’ sights. Ambassadors comes from the pen of Rupert Walters and James Wood, the latter also responsible for Rev. A similar elegiac tone imbues this portrait of a dilapidated British institution suffering a moral crisis, and Mitchell while very much his own man has some of Tom Hollander’s touching air of defeated pride. (Hollander plays an idiotic royal-on-tour in the next episode).

If there’s a problem, beyond some sketchy plotting, it’s that Ambassadors doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Webb sometimes seems to be in an entirely different comic time zone, while the scene in the secure room where Mitchell and Webb argue about the so-called right thing to do feels helicoptered in from a bleeding-heart drama by Peter Kosminsky. And yet the laughs come reliably. The tumbling bodies of diplomats poisoned by alcohol is a lovely visual gag. And Mitchell’s hilarious climactic rant to a priapic actor and an ungrateful activist, while delivered with feeling, has the makings of a YouTube collectible.

Should Ambassadors pack its bags and be recalled home? Far from it. Carry on, ambassador.Mitchell’s climactic rant has the makings of a YouTube collectiblerating

Submitted by Ian (not verified) on Thu, 24/10/2013 - 14:57.It's a bit feeble to lean so heavily on a shocking book without any acknowledgement (Murder in Samarkand) by Craig Murray), and at the same time make light of the arms trade and torture. Sure, Mitchell and Webb are funny guys, but they look like they don't if they are in a suburban comedy or a more biting and black satire (which would have been more challenging and satisfying). It's designed to be affable and bumbling, so that no-one gets too upset about the mercenary politics involved, and which Craig suffered his job for in the end. An opportunity missed for some searing black comedy, in favour of some lite diplomatic Terry and June encounters.

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Submitted by Sue Collini (not verified) on Wed, 23/10/2013 - 23:34.Not awful but not great either. I thought, Mitchell's closing rant aside, that he and Webb were the weakest things in it.